Re: Falling Windows Market Share

On Wed, 25 Jun 2025 16:53:37 -0400, Paul wrote:

The customers on the other hand, are so price sensitive, it's
ridiculous. This is why I'm seeing questions now about NUC-like boxes.
Intel made NUC boxes for a while, the interest was limited to "rich
people". Intel would not drop the price. Intel has exited the NUC
market, Asus got the formfactor from them. But now, the pricing is
competitive,
and the price of these things will drop into the sewer, and so will the
performance. And Intel gets to sell some of its two-core processors (in
the year 2025) -- a huge money maker, I'm sure.
The BGA (ball grid array soldered-down processor) chips on the Intel
site,
don't normally list prices.

I became interested in the formfactor when the company bought a Mac Mini
to compile code for an iPhone app. I was not impressed by the Intel NUCs
and bought a Beelink SER4.

https://www.cnx-software.com/2022/04/04/beelink-ser4-review-windows-11-
ubuntu-20-04-and-overclocking-amd-ryzen-7-4800u-soc/

It came with Windows 11 but that didn't last long. I saw no reason for a
dual boot and installed Linux over it. It's been my daily driver since
September 2022 with no problems from the hardware. iirc it was around
$350. The SER5 with the Ryzen 7 68000U is now $320 on Amazon. Since then
they've expanded both up and down scale. I think the current bargain
basement model is the S13 with an Intel N150 for $170. That's lower than
the Asus N150 barebone offering.  Asus seems to be pushing barebones
offerings instead of something that works out of the box. I don't know if
that's a legacy from the Intel days.